Thursday, June 30, 2005

Quotes of the Morning: Yellow Elephants

“Although the Army will not release its numbers until Friday, it fell about 25 percent short of its target of signing up 6,700 recruits in May, officials said Wednesday. The gap would have been even wider but for the fact that the target was lowered by 1,350.[…]Recruiters would have to land more than 9,760 young men and women a month, on average, to reach the 80,000 target by the end of September.In other words, they would have to far exceed their official targets, which range from 5,650 to 9,250 a month.”-Associated Press, June 9, 2005

"For the first time since January, the Army met its monthly recruiting goal in June, but still faces what some senior Army officials say is a nearly insurmountable shortfall to meet the service's annual quota.The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, told a town-hall meeting at the Pentagon today that the Army had exceeded its June quota, but gave no details. Senior Army officials said in interviews earlier in the day that the Army had exceeded the goal of 5,650 recruits by about 500 people.”-New York Times, June 29, 2005"Wow.. That's great. I am somewhat surprised to find that June, the month of most graduations, is considered one of the months with the lowest target numbers for enlistment, but hey, isn't it special that they got about 6,150 people to sign up? That means that they only need to average almost 11,000 people a month for the next three months to meet their September target. Where are the Young Republicans when you need them?"-Skippy

"At a table by the buffet was Justin Palmer, vice chairman of the Georgia Association of College Republicans, America's largest chapter of College Republicans. In 1984 the group gained prominence in conservative circles when its chairman, Ralph Reed, formed a political action committee credited with helping to re-elect Senator Jesse Helms. Palmer's future as a right-wing operative looked bright; he batted away my question about his decision to avoid fighting the war he supported with the closest thing I heard to a talking point all afternoon. 'The country is like a body,' Palmer explained, 'and each part of the body has a different function. Certain people do certain things better than others.' He said his 'function' was planning a 'Support Our Troops' day on campus this year in which students honored military recruiters from all four branches of the service.[...]By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. 'The people opposed to the war aren't putting their asses on the line,' Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? 'I'm not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country,' he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, 'and I wasn't going to pass that up.'And besides, being a College Republican is so much more fun than counterinsurgency warfare. Bray recounted the pride he and his buddies had felt walking through the center of campus last fall waving a giant American flag, wearing cowboy boots and hats with the letters B-U-S-H painted on their bare chests. 'We're the big guys,' he said. 'We're the ones who stand up for what we believe in. The College Democrats just sit around talking about how much they hate Bush. We actually do shit.'"-Max Blumenthal, The Nation, June 28, 2005

"Oh.. Well, I guess if you're busy.. I wonder why they're having so many troubles getting recruits?"-Skippy

"That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."-Donald Rumsfeld, June 26, 2005“But that’s not what I came to tell you about. I came to talk about the draft.”-Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant“The draft.. Coming soon to a city near you.”-Skippy